Cybersecurity is a top priority for President Obama heading into his 2nd term. A proposed cybersecurity policy has been written in response to the increasing number of cyber attacks on both the government and private companies. It made its way to legislation on May 12, 2011. The cybersecurity legislative proposal included wide-ranging measures to improve the nation’s cybersecurity and protect critical infrastructure. If passed, this legislation will affect all operators of cyber systems including the Department of Veteran’s Affairs (VA) 22 million veterans, their family members, and employees. The whole VA organization has to be aware of the new requirements that will be implemented. We will examine the impact of the May 2011 cybersecurity legislative proposal to our current information security programs; VA Handbook 6500 Risk Management Framework for VA Information Systems – Tier 3: VA Information Security Program, and other VA Handbook 6500 series publications. Several points of analysis will be discussed with additional cyber security requirements being implemented.
First and foremost protecting the personal information data of our veterans is critical, and if a breach occurs, then we need to be prepared for it. The VA Handbook 6500.2: Management of Data Breaches involving Sensitive Personal Information (SPI) provides the procedures the VA is required to follow to manage data breaches. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) develops, and periodically reviews policies and procedures governing the acquisition, interception, retention, use, and disclosure of communications, records, system traffic, or other information. The DHS will “minimize” the impact on privacy and civil liberties. The VA will increase the safeguards on r...
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...he federal government to ensure a secure reliable infrastructure with joint responsibility, but the DHS will have the ultimate cybersecurity authority. If
VA’s federal government affiliation limits the impact of the cyber security legislative proposal compared to the private sector. The issues that will affect us have to been corrected quickly to ensure we are compliant to the new laws. The notification regulation will assist veterans in ensuring they will be informed when there are minor breaches in their personal information. Critical infrastructure and systems are identified using Priority Codes, and system impact values thus ensuring which items need to be addressed immediately. Information sharing of cyber vulnerabilities, threats, and attacks to DHS will address our concerns and assist the nation with the ever increasing number of cyber attackers.
This project must meet the requirements of DoD security policies and standards for delivery of the technology services. The first requirement we are to discuss is Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) which is a United States legislation that defines a comprehensive framework to protect government information, operations and assets against natural or man-made threats. FISMA assigned the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the responsibility of defining standards and security procedures to be followed and must be complied. There are nine processes NIST outlines to be in compliance with FISMA:
and their use. In Committee on Deterring Cyber attacks: Informing Strategies and Developing Options (Ed.), Proceedings of a Workshop on Deterring Cyber attacks: Informing Strategies and Developing Options for U.S. Policy. Washington, D.C.: National Academies Press.
After the fear of terrorism grew in the United States do to the Al Qaeda 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, the US Government found a need for a centralized department that umbrellas all other agencies when it comes to homeland security. The U.S. Government found this umbrella agency with the passage of the Homeland Security Act by Congress in November 2002, the Department of Homeland Security formally came into being as a stand-alone, Cabinet-level department to further coordinate and unify national homeland security efforts. (Homeland Security) With the creation of the new Department of Homeland Security (DHS) the government had a pinpoint location for the collection and gathering of intelligence, control of policies that effect national security, and a no fail mission. The Department of Homeland Security started to engulf other agencies and created many more, a total of 22 agencies now fall under the DHS. The DHS is control of all areas that deal with national security which included but are not limited to coastal and boarder protection, domestic terrorism, international terrorism, protection of the American people, protection of key infrastructure, protection of key resources and respond to natural disasters.
During the process of analyzing an organizations effectiveness to manage cybersecurity risks, there are ranges of security policies that need to be implemented. A prime example of this concept is the cybersecurity policies developed for consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton. The direct division formed to address the firm’s requirements within cyberspace is the Cyber Solution Network (CSN). The CSN division within Booz Allen Hamilton has a range of policies used to ensure the firm is protected against risk.
USCYBERCOM unifies the command of the cyberspace efforts and units of the United States military. The United States Department of Defense also has outlined the principles that form its cyber defense strategy, building and maintaining ready forces and capabilities to conduct cyberspace operations, defend the DoD information network, secure DoD data, and mitigate risks to DoD missions. Be prepared to defend the U.S. homeland and U.S. vital interests from disruptive or destructive cyberattacks of significant consequence. Build and maintain viable cyber options and plan to use those options to control conflict escalation and to shape the conflict environments at all stages. Build and maintain robust international alliances and partnerships to deter shared threats and increase international security and stability. The five pillars of cyber security, confidentiality, integrity, availability, non-repudiation, and authentication. Protecting information from disclosure to unauthorized individuals, systems or entities, Protect information, systems, and services from unauthorized modification or destruction, Timely, reliable access to data and information services by authorized users, the ability to correlate a recorded action with its originating individual or entity, and the ability to verify the identity of an individual or entity
With the increasing use of emerging technologies and the associated information security threat threshold, Ohio University has adopted the NIST 800-53 security control framework to support their regulatory compliance efforts. NIST 800-53 is being implemented to provide a comprehensive set of security controls. This control framework is responsible for instituting minimum requirements that meet approved standards and guidelines for information security systems. It provides a baseline for managing issues relating to mobile and cloud computing, insider threats, trustworthiness and resilience of their information systems. NIST defines the standards and guidelines to be adhered to meet the cyber security control that align to FISMA expectations.
Security helps the organization meet its business objectives or mission by protecting its physical and financial resources, reputation, legal position, employees, and other tangible and intangible assets through the selection and application of appropriate safeguards. Businesses should establish roles and responsibilities of all personnel and staff members. However, a Chief Information Officer should be appointed to direct an organization’s day to day management of information assets. Supporting roles are performed by the service providers and include systems operations, whose personnel design and operate the computer systems. Each team member must be held accountable in ensuring all of the rules and policies are being followed, as well as, understanding their roles, responsibilities and functions. Organizations information processing systems are vulnerable to many threats that can inflict various types of damage that can result in significant losses (Harris, 2014). Losses can come from actions from trusted employees that defraud the system, outside hackers, or from careless data entry. The major threat to information protection is error and omissions that data entry personnel, users, system operators and programmers make. To better protect business information resources, organizations should conduct a risk analysis to see what
President Obama has realized the seriousness of the upcoming threats and turned the government focus more toward defending the information and communications infrastructure and In May 2009, he issued a request from top to bottom review of the current situation. The report titled the Cyberspace Policy Review includes strategy, policy, and standards regarding the security of and operations in cyberspace. According the white house’s cybersecurity foreign policy, the Cyberspace Policy Review highlighted two objectives and ten near-term actions to support the cybersecurity strategy.
National and International Security is a sum of the actions taken by countries and other organizations that can guarantee the safety and well being of their population. It is vital for a nation to pre-emptively discover what issues could affect their security, and take action to prevent any detrimental or harmful events from happening. With the development of technology and the transition into a more technologically savvy society, cyber security has become one of the most prevalent and important economic and national security issues that the United States will come to face.
In this research paper, I am going to discuss the plan that the Department of Homeland Security has set forth for the years of 2012-2016. This plan outlines the entire vision of the department to essentially accomplish their missions and goals. The plan consists of missions varying from border security to cyber security. We must not forget the men and women on the front line working hard to ultimately secure and provide safety for the United States of America.
...the nation’s critical infrastructure. With the creation of the DHS the government has shown that they are investing money and resources into protecting our nation’s infrastructure.
For thousands of years warfare remained relatively unchanged. While the tactics and weapons have changed as new methods of combat evolved, men and women or their weapons still had to meet at the same time and place in order to attack, defend, surrender or conquer. However, the advent of the of the internet has created a new realm of combat in which armies can remotely conduct surveillance, reconnaissance, espionage, and attacks from an ambiguous and space-less digital environment. Both state and non-state actors have already embraced this new realm and utilized both legal and illegal means to further facilitate their interests. What complicates cyber security further is as states attempt to protect themselves from cyber-warfare, private and commercial technological methods largely keeps pace with state technological developments, largely removing military advantages created through large militaries. Since the creation and implementation of international networking via the internet, the United States has adopted the technology within the military and government infrastructure. As a result, the United States has opened itself up to a new threat which must be actively addressed in order to protect the national security of the United States. Successful cyber-attacks originating in China, Russia, and the Middle East have already penetrated the United States military’s network infrastructure and leaked sensitive and classified information. While the size and the scope of the information breaches have not yet resulted in a grave threat to the United States, the increase in cyber-threats and cyber-attacks make cyber-warfare one of the most important national security issues facing the United States and the intelligence community. A ca...
Cybersecurity is a government institution implemented by Homeland Security. According to the website for Homeland Security, cybersecurity is operated by a team of skilled professionals who will recognize cyber vulnerability and respond as quickly as possible. The security was mainly built for United States defense reasons, but lately has also dealt with issues within the country. Of course its main purpose is to protect the United States and it will continue to do that. It just recently has taken steps to advance to national security as well as personal security. In 2010 the cybersecurity act that was passed was intended to integrate the private and public sector of cybersecurity for optimal use. Hacking int...
In recent years, many possible plans to enact government regulation to improve cybersecurity have been suggested. Most recently, in 2017, then U.S. president Barack Obama implemented the Cybersecurity National Action Plan (CNAP). The plan would have invested $19 billion in cybersecurity by gathering experts to make recommendations in regards to cyber security, help secure the government IT group, and encourage more advanced security measures (Daniel 1). However, while CNAP does present a way to solve the problem, it just adds another program that attempts to enhance cybersecurity: “It is the multiplicity of programs and division of responsibility that diminishes their effectiveness. At least eleven federal agencies bear significant responsibility for cybersecurity” (Cohen 1). Every so often, another cybersecurity program will be established, but former plans are seldom removed. This leads to a large amount of departments to share responsibility, which creates general confusion and limits each department’s power. Furthermore, widespread government regulation may weaken cybersecurity. Many fear that any regulation would not be flexible enough and would instead allow easier hacking (Ridge 3). If every system in the entire nation had the same security measures, it would be much easier to break into as by breaking into one system, a hacker a could break into everything.
The nation has become dependent on technology, furthermore, cyberspace. It’s encompassed in everything we deliver in our daily lives, our phones, internet, communication, purchases, entertainment, flying airplane, launching missiles, operating nuclear plants, and implicitly, our protection. The more ever-growing technology empower Americans, the more they become prey to cyber threats. The United States Executive Office of the President stated, “The President identified cybersecurity as one of the top priorities of his administration in doing so, directed a 60-day review to assess polices.” (United States Executive Office of the President, 2009, p.2). Furthermore, critical infrastructure, our network, and internet alike are identified as national assets upon which the administration will orchestrate integrated cybersecurity policies without infringing upon and protecting privacy. While protecting our infrastructure, personal privacy, and civil liberties, we have to keep in mind the private sector owns and operates the majority of our critical and digital infrastructure.